Electronic presentations incorporating various media, for example video, audio, text, and still pictorial components, are known in the art. Such multimedia presentations, often referred to as rich media presentations, have become increasingly popular as computer use has grown and the Internet has expanded. Rich media presentations are now used for advertising, sales and marketing, educational, and general message dissemination purposes locally, over computer networks including the Internet, and via email.
Current rich media presentations and systems for the creation and management of the same, however, suffer from several drawbacks. First, with the variety of media software available to computer users, there is a lack of uniformity in system specifications and capabilities, making the formatting and delivery of the presentations with desired and uniform speed and quality difficult. Second, rich media presentations can be difficult to create, manage, and deliver for those without a fairly sophisticated level of technical expertise and computer knowledge. For example, a business or individual who desires to use rich media for advertising purposes may not have the means necessary to create an original video presentation and manage the formatting, dissemination, and subsequent use of the rich media content. Additionally, rich media presentations can be inflexible, making it difficult to adapt a presentation or customize a message for various uses, audiences, formats, content, and medias.
U.S. patent application Publication No. 2002/0169797, for example, discloses a method and system for generating and providing rich media presentations optimized for a device over a network. An exemplary system in which the invention operates includes wireless mobile devices, a wireless network, a gateway, one or more content delivery networks, a wide area network (WAN)/local area network (LAN), one or more network devices, and one or more World Wide Web origin servers. The system may further include device trackers and detectors that determine the attributes to send optimized rich media presentations to the requesting device. Based on the attributes of the requesting device, the rich media presentations are assembled.
A method and system for delivering technology agnostic rich media content within an email, banner ad, and web page are disclosed in U.S. patent application Publication No. 2002/0129089. According to one aspect of this invention, rich media presentations may be played automatically within an email. When a video email is sent to a recipient, the requesting device receives the necessary rich media presentations, including a virtual player, presentation packages, and media packages, necessary to play the presentation within the email. When the email is opened, the rich media presentation begins to automatically play within the email on supported devices. Rich media presentations may also be played automatically within a web page window.
U.S. patent application Publication No. 2003/0200145 discloses an Internet-based system and method for creating and distributing customized rich media marketing and sales materials via e-mail. Businesses desiring to use the system of the present invention register with the system to obtain user identifications and passwords for its authorized sales personnel, who are typically the primary users of the system. Such businesses also provide their existing sales and marketing materials, such as television, print and streaming rich media electronic presentations and materials, to the system operator for conversion as necessary and storage for use later in creating customized sales and marketing materials for business customers. New materials can also be created specifically for use in customer e-mails created and sent using the system of the present invention. The system stores such materials in a database for selection and use by business sales personnel in creating customized information packages for customers.
Difficulties remain, however, in distributing and sharing rich media presentations among systems and computers that do not have common platforms. Rich media presentations are generally formatted for a particular program or system and problems occur if a recipient does not have the system capabilities or required software with which to view and run the presentation. Further, the management of rich media presentations is complex and technical, particularly when system configurations and specifications are not uniform.
There is, therefore, a need for a rich media system and method of managing the same that substantially address these formatting, management, and delivery shortcomings.